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requirements

Area of Knowledge

APCVNSNS+LRLSS

Context of Experience

ETUSWC

Combinable Context of Experience

PI

Other GenEd

QRW

Capstone/Synthesis

CapSyn

Course of Study

MajorMinor

CUNY Required Core

EC-1EC-2LPSMQR

CUNY Flexible Core

CEISSWUSEDWCGI

QC College Option

LangLitSci

None

None

date(s)

any dateonbeforeafterfrom

fromto

1 Proposal: number 21

21. CMLIT 101W: Global Literatures I

Contact:

Christopher Winks

Abstract:

Among the distinctive contributions of the always open and diversified field ofComparative Literature to a liberal education has been its emphasis on what hasbeen called the “worlding” of literature, the various ways in which literaturehelps us to see and understand the world we live in and its multiple pasts,presents, and futures, and on the importance of textual analysis andtranslation as communicating vessels between languages and cultures. Thiscourse and its companion, Global Literatures II, aim to provide students with agreater awareness of the global cultural contexts in which literary works arecreated (which is intended to enhance rather than diminish consideration of theaesthetic qualities of these texts). The course draws its assigned readingsfrom ancient times to the early modern period (a period spanning the 3rdmillennium BCE to the early 16th century CE). It may include both written andoral materials, with a focus on the plurality (and where possible theintersections and interactions) of ancient and pre-modern worlds: Greece andRome, China and India, the global Middle Ages, the empires of North and WestAfrica, the Renaissance and the pre-Columbian world.

This is intended to be a variable-topics course and its instructor(s) will havebroad leeway to shape its content and emphases, while preserving across-cultural, comparative orientation that situates the selected texts in thewider world(s) of their marking. Sample topics could be: From Orature toLiterature, The Epic, Love in the Ancient World, Monotheisms and Polytheisms,Literature of Empire, Representations of the Individual, Poetry of Antiquity,etc.

Sample Topic:

Visions and Versions of Antiquity. What is termed the “ancient world” hasconventionally been equated with “the Greeks and the Romans,” following aparadigm that tends to relegate the vast rest of the globe to a peripheralstatus. This course proposes a broader focus that, while acknowledging theimmense contributions of Greece and Rome, explores as well examples of theliteratures of ancient Egypt, China, and India; medieval Persia and WestAfrica; and Mesoamerica after the Spanish Conquest (a tragic milestone in theforging of what we call the “modern” era). As we read and discuss these oftenfragmentary readings (which parallel our own often fragmentary understanding ofthe worlds that shaped them), we will consider not only their immediatehistorical and cultural contexts, but also their continuing resonance acrosstime, place, and language.